Hurricanes’ coach Frank Haith hopes to strike transfer gold again

Frank Haith has had good to great success with players that have transferred from elsewhere to play for the Hurricanes.Jack McClinton, who arrived from Siena, is simply one of the greatest players in UM history. Malcolm Grant led Miami in assists and averaged 9.6 points last season after transferring from Villanova. Cyrus McGowan was a bit of a disappointment after arriving from Arkansas in 2008 but still managed to start 42 games over two seasons in Coral Gables.

Trey McKinney-Jones was a track and field star in high school. (The University News)

Now comes Trey McKinney-Jones, who played two seasons at the University of Missouri-Kansas City before transferring to Miami last month.

A 6-4 guard, McKinney-Jones is considered a phenomenal athlete who wasn’t recruited very heavily coming out of a Milwaukee high school because he spent most of his summers concentrating on track rather than basketball. That makes sense considering the McKinney-Jones won back-to-back Wisconsin state titles in the triple jump in 2007 and 2008 and was the state runner-up in the long jump.

McKinney-Jones received scholarship offers from Minnesota and Marquette, but for track, not basketball.

After starting 25 games and averaging 10.9 points last season, McKinney-Jones decided to increase his level of competition.

“Trey is a young man who is a lot like Jack [McClinton] who played at a certain level and wanted to play higher,” Haith said. “He’s very capable. He’s 6-4, 6-5, he’s strong, fast and athletic. He’s got a great shot. And he’s a great kid. I think he’s got a chance to be really good.”

McKinney-Jones chose UM over Wisconsin and will have to sit out the 2010-11 seasons in accordance with NCAA transfer rules.

McKinney’s athleticism runs in the family. His aunt, Esther Jones, was a national champion in track and field at LSU in 199- in the 100 and 200-meters and was an Olympic gold medalist in 1992 as a member of the 4×100 relay. His uncle, Mark Jones, played for the Orlando Magic and professionally overseas.

Here are a few more basketball notes while I try to figure out how UM’s baseball team could blow a five-run ninth inning lead to Boston College on Thursday afternoon:

….UM’s non-conference schedule next season will include games against West Virginia, Memphis and Ole Miss. Only the game against Mississippi will be at home. There are on-going negotiations to add a noted Big Ten opponent to the schedule as well. By the way, the Hurricanes will play games against Duke and North Carolina at the BankUnited Center. “It’s a heavy schedule but this is a team that’s very capable of handling it,” Haith said.

….Malcolm Grant, listed at 191 pounds in last year’s media guide, has gotten his weight down to around 180 pounds. “That’s great for him,” Haith said. “I think it will help his endurance and quickness.”

….Durand Scott has been invited to Chris Paul’s basketball camp in June.

…Haith has one more scholarship to offer, but will likely keep it for next season. If Haith used the remaining scholarship, it would afford UM only one available scholarship for the 2011-12 recruiting class. “Would we take somebody else?,” Haith said. “It would have to be somebody that would really help us. I’d like to have those two for next year’s class because we’re involved with some really good players.”

…DeQuan Jones and Reggie Johnson will spend part of August in China playing for an AAU team, Haith said. The schedule includes a game against the Chinese national team. Asked if the China trip might help the portly Johnson lose a little weight, Haith cracked, “That’s the plan.”

Rion Brown

….UM’s three-man freshmen recruiting class – guard Rion Brown, center Raphael Akpejiori and forward Erik Swoope — arrives on campus in June. “Rion has a chance to really help us because he can shoot the ball, he can really stroke it,” Haith said. “Raphael has a big body, strong kid. Eric is one of those undersized guys but I like guys like that because they have great toughness and he’ll create tough match-up problems. He’s only 6-5 but he’s like 250. He’s a man. I wanted some balance on our team so we can play whichever way we need to play.”

….Haith has opened a Twitter account and has been tweeting away regarding various subjects. “I want people to get to know me a little bit and I want to be able to communicate with our fan base,” Haith said. “Just doing something a little different.” Haith joked that his tweets will have their limits. “I’m not like [Kentucky coach John] Calipari,” Haith said. “I won’t go eat at a certain place than tweet about how the food is.” You can catch Haith’s tweets on Twitter at @CoachHaith.